One of the joys in having our own place is that we can cook, but cooking can be hard when it involves getting ingredients in places that don’t speak English and have fruit the likes of which we have never seen before, so we hatched a plan.

On day 2 in Medellin, through an AirBnB experience, we met the lovely Nataly, a sassy local who had been a consultant, went travelling to Europe for a while and didn’t fancy the consulting lark on her return, so started a cooking experience. With her we went the the Mercado de Suramerica, a traditional market on the edge of Laureles. It has pretty much everything you can want for a good meal; loads of fruit, veggies, fish, meat…….pigs heads, tripe…. Etc (J by-passed those aisles and bought some flowers for the apartment). It also has stalls where you can sit and watch the world go by with a beer or local rum in hand, which would be useful on future visits.

Nataly cut around the place like she owned it, explained to us what everything was, helped us understand what a friendly environment it was then took us home to cook. We learned that despite the copious amounts of fruit, the Colombian diet was not healthy and the key ingredients to most things is sugar and frying stuff. Even the fruit juice has a ton of sugar added. Other fruits are fried.

We had a meal of pork belly, beans, rice, plantains (squashed and deep fried), followed by fruits stewed with sugar and cinnamon. J gave the pork a miss.

It was a lovely meal, a great experience and gave us the confidence to go and shop where the locals shop. We have been back since, but mostly sat at a bar, had a beer and watched the world go by.